


All Petals Unfurl (The Wicked Queen Requests a Moment Of Your Time)

by zeldadestry



Category: Snow White – All Media Types
Genre: POV First Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-07
Updated: 2007-01-07
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:45:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zeldadestry/pseuds/zeldadestry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I would rather be a bitch than a martyr."</p>
            </blockquote>





	All Petals Unfurl (The Wicked Queen Requests a Moment Of Your Time)

**Author's Note:**

> written for Aeide in the New Year's Resolutions 2007 Challenge  
> 

I know you hate me. No, no, it’s alright. Please, don’t deny it. Why should executioners tell lies?

It’s easy to hate me. After all, I deserve it.

Why have I asked you to give me this moment? I know secrets that you need to hear. I want you to listen. I want to share my side of the story.

So many of you hate me not because of the vile things I’ve done, but simply because I am beautiful.

I was born beautiful. My mother and her mother and her mother before her, all the way back to Eve, the women of my family are beautiful. You called me the most beautiful woman in all the world. You dreamed to look like I look and you cried because you didn’t. You cut your faces, scraped away bone and fat, just to be a little bit more like I am.

Hold on. Look in the mirror. Go on, I’ll wait. Yes, I’ll still be here when you return. This isn’t a last-ditch attempt at escape. I don’t want to escape. I’m ready for my punishment.

Now, tell me. Do you look like me? No, of course not. You still look like you. All your pain was wasted.

But why did you never ask the most important question? Am I happy? Of course not. Was I happy before? No, not really.

We may be beautiful, my luminous bloodline, but we are bitter and insatiable. We always want more.

My father was a gambler. His debts increased until our family was ruined. He killed himself after that. Don’t look so shocked. He didn’t shoot himself or hang himself or anything like that. He just drank too much and that was that.

Of course it’s still suicide. No, I am not trying to make you pity me. God damn it, you don’t understand at all, do you?

I am trying to tell you that we are not really so different. I am trying to tell you that you shouldn’t hate me for who I am, but only for what I’ve done. And even that, what I’ve done, even for that, perhaps you should be able to forgive me. You should look to see if the same thorns lie in your own hearts.

She is beautiful, I know, she is more beautiful than I, in every way, and I should not have hurt her. But how she looked each time she fell! I was the one who shot her down, yes, but each time I was also the one to make it right again. I took the poison comb from out her hair, I unlaced the corset so she could breathe again, I spread her mouth open and gently pressed my fingers inside to find and remove the piece of poisoned apple. I did all of this! I did it all. I hurt her, and I saved her. Because you can not imagine what she looks like, when she dies. You can not imagine. I hated her each time until I destroyed her and then once she was collapsed in front of me, I loved her. You can not imagine how I loved her. When I pressed my mouth to hers to share my breath and bring her back to life, it was a true kiss. But she would wake, she had to wake and see me and tremble.

What makes me so horrible? Why are you all so frightened of me?

Listen. I loved my husband. I wish I could have stayed forever young for him. What was I to do when he left me? How could I not blame her?

You hate me and yet you wish to look like me. You grow your hair long, you dye it blonde, you paint your lips red, you sit in front of your mirror and you ask, hoping and hoping to one day hear the magic answer in return.

If I ever return to this world, I will break every mirror I see. Do you hear me! Break the mirror. I beg you. It is not too late for you. Break them all. Do not let the glass tell you who you are.

But of course I am vain. When did I ever deny it? Let me, the goddess of vanity, tell you that it is worthless in the end. Hear me. I have followed that impulse further than any of you have dared, and I have seen where it leads, so if I tell you to shun the path, believe that I know of what I speak. But do I stop, now that I know how wicked it all is? No, no, of course I do not stop. I must follow this path until the end.

What did I tell you? I am insatiable. I always want more.

My mother kept her breasts from me; she was afraid they would sag. She gave me a bottle, and the milk was always cold.

Again, I do not tell you this so you may pity me! This is so that you understand we are not so different. I, too, heard fairy tales when I was growing up. Do not assume that just because I star in them, I never learned them. I knew about Prince Charming, and I wanted to be loved so. I heard about Beauty, and I wished to be so good that I could turn a beast into a man. Yes, I wished to be perfect. You probably find it amusing that I, considered fallen as Satan and bereft of all human kindness, wanted to be good. But I did! But no one really loves a good girl, especially when she’s beautiful. If you’re beautiful all they want is for your legs to open. But you know that, don’t you? Do you know what you told the world, when you tried to dress like me, paint your face like me? You said, yes, I, too, will kill Snow White. I don’t care about her, she’s nothing to me, and I will do whatever it takes to be the first, the best.

But it’s such a cheap victory, to be the most beautiful. Why, then, did I want to hurt her? It had already taken root in my heart, the urge to destroy. When we create, that is when we are alive, so don’t stop. Don’t ever stop, don’t even take a moment to catch your breath, to look around and compare yourself with others.

But this is how we grow. We learn it is the ‘est’ that matters. It is not enough to be pretty, smart, kind, we must be prettiest, smartest, kindest.

I was so jealous, so painfully, unbelievably envious of her, and yet when I was fairest, it did not give me peace. Do you see? There is no peace in climbing that ladder. Bottom rung, top rung, it makes no difference. It is your devotion to hierarchy itself that traps you, not your place within it.

And I refuse to play that game any longer. So now you crown me most beautiful of all bitches and I applaud you. I AM a bitch. I would rather be a bitch than a martyr.

Of course you’re going to kill me now, yes I know. Still, I am no martyr. You kill me for my crimes and, as I told you earlier, I know I deserve it. I chose to come here today. If you weren’t going to do it, I’d have done it myself.

Why did I dress for it, in my gown of white and gold? Why did I curl my hair and paint my lips and line my eyes?

Darling, this is who you want to kill: the beautiful bitch. If I came here in rags, hair shorn, eyes red from weeping, skin bruised and bleeding from self-flagellation, you would begin to feel sorry for me. And if you feel sorry for me, then where’s the fun in watching me die? The more you hate me, the more you will enjoy the spectacle of my destruction.

Only later, later, I do want you to look, just for a moment. Seize your own heart from out your chest, hold it up to the strongest light you can find, dissect it under the microscope, and tell me, tell me, whisper the words above my grave…did you find the thorns and once you did, did you dare to pluck them out?

Ah, they’re almost finished heating the shoes now. I can see them turning red as they lie in the coals.

The band has started to play, the crowd is cheering, the champagne is flowing. Soon.

And I will dance until I die. I will dance, and every one of you will watch transfixed.

She is crying. She has asked you not to do this. She says that she does not want revenge.

Ah! There it is! Did you catch it, please tell me you caught it, what makes her so beautiful. It is her heart!

This is why I could not kill her, because no one can kill her. Her beauty lives on. She came to my chambers one night, she lay beside me in my cold bed and shared her warmth, she whispered to me in the darkest night. ‘Do not hate me! I am like you. My mother couldn’t love me, my father couldn’t protect me. You do not have to steal my kisses from me. I will give them to you.’ Ah. And she did.

Do you hear me? Do you begin to understand?

Right here, right now, I will die before you, and you will celebrate in my honor and you will believe yourselves safe from my influence, my vile reign.

And she will cry, she, the only one who had the right to murder me, for her own protection, she will still be crying.

And you will leave this night, wondering how to be powerful like I, beautiful like her. You will leave with my curse, wanting more and more and more and never being satisfied.

Yes, I curse you. I curse you all!

Oh, and you whine now, and wail, and wring your hands, muttering, ‘what will we do, what will we do’, while all this time, you fools, I have told you what you must do to free yourselves of the burden of my curse.

Look at you! Today you love your Snow White, but when will you turn against her? Will it be when she grows old? Will it be when you realize you can not have her for your very own? For you will turn on her, make no mistake. Someday, she will be forced to wear the burning shoes and dance until she dies. But that is not why she is crying, at least, that is not the only reason she cries. She is crying for me! Will any of you cry for me? Let me let you in on part of the secret: you will cry, once my body falls. You will be wishing you could kill me over and over and over, and once I am dead, you will cry that the torture has ended. Have no fear of these tears, for look at yourselves. It is only a short while yet before you find another scapegoat.

You are ugly, that is the point. You are even uglier than I. I know of the thorn bush that has shredded my heart! I admit it!

Oh and you want to be beautiful, beautiful as I am beautiful, beautiful and you don’t care what hideous truths lie hidden inside you, no, not so long as you can look as I look.

You will never be beautiful. I was born beautiful. Beauty is unfair. You can not work for it and no one deserves it. A very few simply have it bestowed upon them, no more than that, no less. You will never be beautiful! How I envy you. And yet you do not seem to mind the ugliness you cultivate. I am nothing but a single rose petal among innumerable thorns.

My friends, my friends, where is your rose? What have you shown me besides your thorns?

Pluck the thorn from out your heart.

Your heart is a rose, the most beautiful rose there could ever be, if you will return it to its original state.

There ought to be no envy, no jealousy. How I wish you would believe me! You were all, all of you, born with these beautiful hearts!

Do not seek to look beautiful as the rose. You are already a rose, let all petals unfurl!

Pluck the thorn from out your heart. I have. Now I look forward to the dance.

Ah, the shoes, the shoes! Bring them to me. I am ready to die.

I will die dancing. If one must die, one ought to die just so.

Ah, they hurt! Smell my burning flesh. I leave you with this perfume.

Hush, hush, no more words. For now I dance!

Fare thee well and we shall meet again. Not even death can keep me in his embrace.

For I belong to no one.

Everyone.  



End file.
